Shanghai Factory activity in China expanded marginally in April, but ­concerns remain over the health of the Chinese property market after a senior executive at the country’s biggest ­developer said supply greatly exceeded demand in regional cities.

In candid private comments, which have been posted online, the vice-chairman of Vanke Group, Mao Daqing, said the government’s anti-corruption drive was hurting high-end property sales.

He said listings on the secondary market had doubled in some cities as buyers rushed to sell properties at big discounts. “As a result, ordinary people who want to sell homes in the secondary market face deep price cuts," he is reported to have said last week.

Mr Mao said the supply of residential buildings was rapidly increasing but transaction volumes remained low.

Of the 27 key cities monitored by Vanke, Wuxi, outside Shanghai, is the most over-supplied and will take 57 months to clear houses on the market, compared to the national average of 12 months.

Shanghai, Tianjin, Ningbo and Hangzhou are also badly oversupplied, with more than 33 months of housing stock on the market. And Mr Mao said on one measure Beijing’s property ­market was nearing bubble levels.

He said Beijing’s land value as a ­percentage of the US’s GDP was “touching dangerous levels" at 61 per cent, compared to 63.3 per cent for Tokyo in 1990 and 66.3 per cent for Hong Kong in 1997. The weak property market dragged down China’s first quarter GDP growth to 7.4 per cent, its lowest level in 1 ½ years, according to official figures released last month.

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The data showed new housing ­construction area fell by 27.2 per cent over the first three months of the year, ­compared to the same time in 2013.

New home sales were down 7.7 per cent in the first quarter, while new dwellings waiting to be sold were up 23 per cent from the same time last year.

The fragile property market now appears to be the main risk to the Chinese economy this year, as a survey released on Thursday showed the manufacturing sector had stabilised.

The official Purchasing Managers Index for April was slightly lower than expectations at 50.4, but consistent with levels seen over the first four months of the year. This reading was up from 50.3 in March.

“The slight recovery in April indicates that economic growth has been stabilised," said Zhang Liquin, an analyst with the China Federation of Logistics and Purchasing.

“It indicates that economic growth in the future will be stable."

The new orders component of the index was up 0.2 percentage points at 51.2, but new export orders fell 1 percentage point to 49.1. The employment index was stable. As China’s economy has slowed in recent months, the government has avoided deploying a large scale stimulus package while indicating it will tolerate lower growth.

During his annual speech to China’s rubber stamp parliament in March, Premier Li Keqiang said growth this year would be “around" 7.5 per cent.

In the days following government ministers indicated China would still meet its annual target if growth dipped as low as 7.2 per cent.

This is thought to be the level of growth required to create enough jobs for new entrants to the workforce.

In an effort to keep growth above this so called “red line", the government has brought forward infrastructure spending and affordable housing projects.

In March it committed to spend 700 billion yuan ($132 billion) on railway projects this year, a slight increase from 2013.